


You Meant Me

by Aythli



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M, irukakaweek2k16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6010926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aythli/pseuds/Aythli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iruka's frustrated enough to take matters into his own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Valentine's Day/Anniversaries

**Author's Note:**

> A collection of snippets for Irukaka Week 2016 over on Tumblr.

In the end, Iruka claimed that it had all been a clever plan because he suspected that Kakashi was horrid at remembering dates. At the time, however, it had been less of a plan and more succumbing to intense frustration. He’d dated before. Granted, he hadn’t dated a lot, but he fancied himself worldly enough to recognize the signs when someone was interested in him. He was fairly certain that anyone with any reasonable experience and a quarter ounce of libido would notice this particular set of signs, especially because it had been stretching on for the better part of a year now.

He was also fairly certain that a person with the same minimum qualifications would be able pick up on the increasingly not-so-subtle hints he’d been dropping in return. If he could ever corner Kakashi by himself, Iruka was going to drop all pretense and ask him directly, but the brief moments of interaction in the mission room afforded little privacy. Frustrated or not, Iruka wasn’t particularly interested in the rumors that would spread before Kakashi even had a chance to answer.

So he was subtle. Sort of. Asking someone if they had plans on Valentine’s Day and casually adding a reference to an excessive amount of alcohol and food at his home wasn’t particularly subtle. Iruka had ignored the raised eyebrows and surprised looks of everyone else in line. It was Valentine’s Day. He was alone when he didn’t have to be. He was through being subtle.

Kakashi had smiled and made some enigmatic comment along the lines of, “Sounds like a terrible state to be in, Iruka-sensei. I hope someone helps you out of it.”

 _Suave_ , the rest of the village had said.

“Idiot!” Iruka snapped – slurred – six hours later and with the clock pressing perilously close to the day after Valentine’s Day. He’d drunk most of the alcohol and hadn’t eaten nearly enough of the food to counteract it. No one had come to help him with it. He pillowed his head on his arms and spoke to the table. “ _Idiot.”_

Alcohol in excess tended to make him do stupid things. Had he had less to drink, a part of his brain would have offered an argument that he probably shouldn’t try to push a jounin around. As it was, Iruka was out of his apartment and halfway across the village before he even made a conscious decision about what he was going to do.

He rapped on Kakashi’s door, trying to ignore the way he almost missed the face of the door on the first knock. Most of him expected the knock to go unanswered. But the door opened, Kakashi stepped out, and Iruka rocked back on his heels in surprise.

“Iruka-sensei?” Kakashi had taken off his hitae-ate. He stood in the doorway with one eye closed and a small furrow between his brows. “I thought...”

Words bubbled up, but Iruka couldn’t seem to find the right ones to capture his indignation. After a moment of wrestling with it, he grabbed hold of the front of Kakashi’s shirt and pushed him back up against door. It vaguely occurred to him that he should ask permission even as he was tugging Kakashi’s mask down, but he couldn’t seem to put the words together, and Kakashi didn’t seem to be trying to stop him.

The kiss that followed was frenzied. Iruka pressed himself flush against Kakashi, letting his elbows brace against the door so that he could tangle his hands in Kakashi’s hair. He nipped gently at Kakashi’s lower lip and couldn’t help but grin at the startled groan that Kakashi let out. Hands rose to clutch at his shirt. His hips bucked on a purely primal instinct, and his voice of reason finally won out over his inebriation to point out that they were still outside.

They stood for a long moment with their foreheads pressed together. “So am I to understand that your date didn’t work out?” Kakashi finally asked.

Iruka let out an exasperated laugh. “It might have, if you’d bothered to show up.”

Kakashi blinked, his brow furrowing again. “Oh.” He said, after a long moment. “You meant me.”

“Yes, I meant you, you insufferable idiot!”

Kakashi managed to actually shuffle his feet, and a good portion of Iruka’s ire dissipated. “Maa, it’s still Valentine’s Day, isn’t it? Maybe I can still help you out of your terrible state.”

 _Suave,_ the village would have said.

This time, Iruka would have to grudgingly agree.


	2. Domestic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Iruka has a lot of books.

Books, it turned out, made up the majority of their possessions. Iruka didn't horde weapons quite the same way that Kakashi did - his traps mainly released jutsus. They were hard to predict and even harder to dodge. So Kakashi retained weapons supremacy, along with rank and number of grievous injuries, the later being a bit of a dubious honor.  
  
But as they unpacked box after box after box of books, Iruka watched Kakashi out of the corner of his eye, watched his expression morph into one of consternation, and watched him suddenly go back and start to check the titles.  
  
Kakashi held one book loosely in his hand. "I don't remember buying this," he said slowly. It must have been a strange sensation. Trained practically from birth and with the sharingan to boot, Kakashi didn't forget much even if he wanted to.  
  
Iruka cocked his head to one side to make a show of reading the binding even though he already knew what it was. "That's because it's mine." Then he added, because Kakashi was looking at him in a truly insulting way, "I _do_ read, you know."  
  
"When?" Kakashi's befuddled look took in the rest of the boxes stacked high around them, clearly guessing - correctly - that they primarily contained books.  
  
"Some of us don't feel the need to whip books out in public in order to get some light reading done." Iruka grinned impishly. He'd learned, after asking some rather pointed questions, that Kakashi read those books in public simply because he couldn't seem to put them down. Iruka'd perused a couple. Frankly, he didn't see the appeal. But he'd had books keep him up to all hours, so he could understand it. Sort of.  
  
Kakashi's library did not, however consist only of those books - a fact that likely would have shocked the majority of Konoha. Iruka'd already absconded with several jutsu theory books that went deeper into the history and development than any textbook. They were all well read, with illegible notes in the margins, and Iruka'd walked in on Kakashi paging through them on a couple of occasions.

“You don’t say, _sensei_ ,” Kakashi dragged the word out. “I’ll maintain lack of that behavior only highlights a lack of confidence.”

Iruka snorted. Perhaps one of the books in the piles around them was one he was less attached to. If so, he might seriously consider chucking it at Kakashi. He started to scour the piles.

“But you still haven’t really answered my question. When?”

“After you go to bed, mostly,” he admitted after a pause. Since they’d been dating Kakashi’s strange sleep schedule had evened out a bit, but he was still gone obscenely early most mornings. Iruka worked better at night, so he stayed up to grade and plan out the following day of lessons. Then he’d curl up behind Kakashi and read until he felt exhaustion claim him.

It was easier to sleep when he was too tired to dream.

“It gives me something to think about when I’m falling asleep.” Iruka picked up one of the books a leafed through it idly. “It’s never good to let my brain come up with a topic completely on its own.”

The noise that Kakashi made was agreement, understanding, and familiarity all rolled into one. Iruka’d always suspected that he left so early in the morning because he woke up and couldn’t find his way back into sleep. He spotted a book below the one he’d picked up and handed it to Kakashi. “Here. I think you’ll like this one.”

Rustling woke him. The sky outside was still dark, and the clock at his bedside table was still counting in the single digits. He almost slid back into sleep, assuming that the sounds of Kakashi leaving had woken him, when another rustling sound stopped him. Pages turning, he realized, after a moment of puzzling. He wrapped himself around Kakashi, pressing his face between Kakashi’s shoulder blades partially for comfort and partially to block out the light that Kakashi had switched on. It didn’t take long for sleep to claim him again.

When he woke, the sky was light. Kakashi lay with his legs tangled in Iruka’s and his face buried in Iruka’s throat, and the book was jabbing Iruka in the ribs. He couldn’t find it in him to care.


	3. Where is all the fur coming from...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iruka's never really quite sure where he stands with the ninken.

Somehow, Iruka had managed to conveniently forget that moving in with Kakashi, by definition, included moving in with his ninken. The ninken had given him a wide berth ever since he'd thrown Kakashi up against the door and ardently convinced him that they were better off together than apart. He wasn't entirely certain what to make of it. Well, he had his suspicions, but he kept those tucked neatly away. Doubt was rampant enough in his mind - he really didn't need half-formed assumptions adding to it.  
  
So he avoided them, and they neatly avoided interacting with him unless they had Kakashi as a buffer. It worked, but it wasn't great. Iruka was constantly reminded that he wanted this thing - whatever it was - to be longer than a short fling. Starting off at odds with the ninken seemed foolish at best and suicidal at worst, but he could never seem to find the right time to set it to rights.

Then they were moving in together, putting Iruka in the spectacularly unfortunate position of now or never. He brainstormed through most of the time they were packing to no avail only to open the door of the new place to find one of the sources of his consternation sitting squarely on a box in the middle of the entryway.

“Pakkun?” Iruka said slowly, standing just inside the door and balancing a large heavy box precariously on one knee while he tried to nudge the door closed with his shoulder.

"Where should I put this?” He drummed a paw on the box.

Iruka tilted his head sideways to read the scrawl of writing. “It’s Kakashi’s...,” he trailed off, unable to parse the writing, but Pakkun continued to stare at him. “Just put it in the kitchen.”

He fielded a dozen more similar comments and questions over the next fifteen minutes from ninken who had said little more than one or two words to him before. By the time Kakashi arrived with another stack of boxes, he was staring blankly at the door the ninken had vanished through.

“You look befuddled.”

“I...” Iruka started, still trying to figure out why the whole situation seemed so strange. “It’s nothing. It’s probably just because you weren’t here.”

“What is?”

“Your ninken have been bombarding me with questions about unpacking. I honestly didn’t think they cared that much about where you keep your books.”

Kakashi blinked, a studiously blank expression covering his face. The expression was one Iruka knew well – it usually meant mischief and half-truths and things he was going to regret getting talked into later.

“You know what’s going on!”

“I have no idea, sensei, and I resent the implication.”

“Resent all you like! I know that look. I know that you know something that you’re not telling me,” Iruka cocked his head to one side and regarded Kakashi with a long, piercing look. “Spill or I go ask the ninken.” It would be one way to break the ice between them.

Kakashi sighed and grumbled. “They think of you as the boss’ boss. It’s showing more now that we’re here, and it’s our territory instead of my territory. It’s all been very confusing for them over the last several months.”

“The boss’... Wait, _your_ boss?” Iruka pulled himself up taller and flashed a wicked grin in Kakashi’s direction. “They think of me as the alpha?”

A long moment passed before Kakashi said, slowly, “Yes.”

“Well, in that case, go fetch the rest of the boxes.”

“That isn’t how it works, you know.”

“Maybe I should go as your ninken how it works, then. See what other perks I get out of this.” Iruka teased.

“Our ninken,” Kakashi said quietly.

“What?”

A slow, satisfied smile stretched across Kakashi’s lips. “If they think of you as my boss, then that makes you part of the pack. Our ninken.”

“Oh.” Iruka felt something unknot behind his breastbone – a worry that he hadn’t dared give notice to. “I think I can live with that.”

“Good.”


	4. ANBU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being ANBU was an honor. At least, that’s what Kakashi kept telling himself.

“No.”

Kakashi blinked. It wasn’t the last thing he expected someone to say after passing the ANBU entrance exam – there were any number of nonsensical comments that would have made far less sense – but it was down at the bottom of the list. Most shinobi didn’t belong in ANBU. It had nothing to do with their skill or lack thereof. It had to do with ANBU being brutal and painful and a thing that tore at his very soul with every mission.

Most shinobi didn’t belong in ANBU, and Kakshi wouldn’t wish it on them in a heartbeat.

But ANBU wasn’t a forced assignment. It was invitation only, but the invitation was to the exam only. Most people said no. Some people said yes with such glee that the ANBU tasked with delivering the invitation immediately took bets out against them. The people who took the exam and passed were welcomed into ANBU training. The people who took the exam and passed were the ones who had already looked inside themselves and decided that they did believe that the ends justified the means. They were the ones prepared to do anything to protect the village. They were serious, sharp, ferociously dangerous, and not one of them looked back when they finished the exam and immediately entered training – injured, exhausted, and determined.

Kakashi was grateful for the mask. His mind had ground to a halt, and he could only imagine the expression on his face. “Excuse me?”

“I said no.” The man in front of him wore a generic ANBU mask. Earning a mask and name were part of training, but the generic masks protected the identity of those who were being tested.

“You think you didn’t pass.”

“I know I passed. I’m here, more-or-less alive, and you just told me to follow you to the training barracks. But I’m not going to train.”

Kakashi took a second to distill the myriad of questions that sprang to mind down into one simple on. “Why would you take the test if you didn’t want to be an ANBU.”

The man shrugged. “There’s not a much better teacher than adversity. I learned a lot from this. And I think the principles that you’re testing are important. Not just for the ANBU, but for all of us. Plus,” he gave a little sheepish laugh. “Now I know I can do it.”

 “You’re going to walk away from this?” Being ANBU was an honor. At least, that’s what Kakashi kept telling himself. More and more, he thought that being ANBU was an excuse. The missions were so frequent that he barely had time to remember what he’d lost. Then, ANBU had been a solace, but now....

“I don’t belong here!” The man stated it like it was an obvious fact and then seemed to remember that Kakashi didn’t know who he was. “I can’t imagine doing the things that ANBU do. And that’s just based on the rumors I’ve heard! I’m sure the truth is even worse.”

Kakashi remained immobile. Part of him – a very large part of him – was stuck on the idea that walking away was an option.

“Are you going to stop me?”

“No. No, of course not.” ANBU was always voluntary. The leaders recognized the danger in drafting someone in to that type of job. “You’re really just going to walk away?”

“Why not?”

It still took Kakashi another month before he resigned from ANBU. He was one of the best, and ANBU needed him. But he kept returning to the unknown shinobi’s words: why not? In the end, he couldn’t come up with an answer that he believed in.

After that, it was remarkably easy to walk away.


	5. Does biting count as cannibalism?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto's more than a little worried about what's going on in the village.

“I’m serious! ANBU is making zombies. We have to do something!”

“You’ve been watching too many movies, idiot.”

Naruto huffed and crossed his arms. “You didn’t see it. I was a _bite_.”

“Don’t be silly, Naruto.” Sakura rolled her eyes and stalked away from him, seemingly oblivious to the way that he scrambled after her. “I’m sure it was just a bruise. You don’t even know what a bite looks like.”

“I do too!” Naruto shot back. Shinobi tended to be brutal whenever they scuffled, and Naruto scuffled more than most. He knew first hand what a bite mark looked like – he’d seen them on his arms often enough. Seriously, the ANBU were insane. Who knew what they were cooking up, and Naruto could think of a dozen different uses for a resurrected ANBU agent. “Guys, zombies!” He shouted after them.

Sakura stopped dead and turned towards him. “Where did you say the _bruise_ was?”

“Right under his vest.” Naruto drew a line across his lower back. “His shirt came untucked while you guys were sparring, and I saw it.”

“So...,” Sasuke said slowly. “ANBU’s creating zombies. One of them escaped and decided to take a piece of Kakashi-sensei. It got past Kakashi-sensei’s defenses, and, for some reason, stopped to take a bite of his kidneys?”

Naruto scowled. Sakura smirked.

“You are an idiot.”

* * *

“Either lower or higher, love. The kids saw the last one.”


	6. Seduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not like anyone would believe him, but Iruka had actually planned on seducing someone else.

“With all due respect, I told you this was a bad idea.” Iruka’s arms were folded across his chest so tightly that he looked like he was about to break. “This is not my forte.” A cough cut him off, and he glared at Kakashi. “And, unsurprisingly, it’s all gone to hell.”

Tsunade shot a pointed glance at Kakashi, who had lost a shirt in the fracas and who was sitting with his legs crossed in a way that could almost pass as casual. “Not your forte?” A scarlet flush burned across Iruka’s cheeks, and a wicked smile tugged at her lips. “I’d say we were lucky no one else was available.”

“Lucky?” Iruka started. “Someone else _was_ available. ANBU went around the assignment system and already had someone managing the problem.”

“Hmm, but that was quite unavoidable. What I don’t know, I don’t know.” Tsunade waved a hand to dismiss them and sauntered out, calling over her shoulder as she went, “But I still maintain that we were lucky. Someone else might have given Kakashi time to think, and he would have taken them for the assassin.”

In a society like theirs, assassinations were disturbingly commonplace, so much so that some of the high-ranking officials stopped taking the threats seriously. This particular one was an officious young lord too confident in his abilities to be trusted to take care of himself. Unfortunately, protecting an unwilling client was next to impossible. When he’d had two shinobi thrown out of his house for insinuating that he needed protection, Tsunade’d stepped up her game.

Iruka’s specialty was in traps, but no one made it through a single year teaching at the Academy without learning the basics of all of the other common techniques. Surrounded by ten- and eleven-year-olds with access to potentially lethal skills, he wanted to know that he could recognize exactly what they were doing. So he could throw a drugged senbon needle with the most average of them.

As he’d pointed out to Tsuade, this wasn’t his forte. With a little practice, he could probably be passably skilled, but at this point, he was better off keeping the needle in his hand and sticking someone with it.

As an added wrinkle, Tsunade wanted to keep their client in the dark. There was little point in annoying the people with the money to pay for missions, and since their client had made it abundantly clear that he did not want their help, Tsunade wanted to keep up all appearances that they’d kept their noses out of it.

So Iruka had to get close without arousing suspicion.

But not, as it turned out, without arousing something else.

Iruka buried his head in his hands.

It all would have been easier if ANBU hadn’t called in a favor from a prior operative. Iruka still hadn’t heard the full story as to why ANBU _cared_ – something about funding and exorbitant donations from this lordling’s family – but they wanted the man alive and were willing to move mountains to make it happen.

A sleeping jutsu and a quick henge later, and Kakashi was in the client’s place.

Iruka’s henge might not have been as skilled – he wasn’t trying to look like anyone in particular, just not himself – but it was competent enough to hide him from someone who could have recognized him. Also, it was easier to conjure up a dark seductive look on someone else’s face than it was on his own. He’d watched the client’s – Kakashi’s – eyes widen in response and had moved before he had the chance to think more about it. It was easy to press a demanding kiss to Kakashi’s lips, easier still when Kakashi leaned into it. He’d tumbled Kakashi onto the floor, tucked in between his legs and so close that he could feel Kakashi’s quick breathing on his cheek.

They’d both lost control of their henges, a rookie mistake that could perhaps be forgiven under the circumstances. Face-to-face and so close that he could feel Kakashi’s heartbeat at a dozen points of contact, Iruka almost continued. His lips were only a hairsbreadth away from Kakashi’s when he finally managed to stop himself.

“It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, you know,” Kakashi finally said from the chair next to him.

Iruka coughed out a laugh, knowing full well that Kakashi was right, but he was loath to admit it.

“The mission’s over, so they don’t need us anymore. We could pick up right where we left off.”

“You want me to pin you to the floor again?”

“I’d like to see that look you gave me on _your_ face.” The lilt to his voice sounded like a smile, but the hitch in his voice sounded entirely too much like barely controlled desire. “Like I said, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant.”

Iruka felt his heart rate accelerate at the promise of that tone. “No,” he agreed. “Not entirely.


	7. At Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things were supposed to be worse at night.

Things were supposed to be worse at night. Certainly, everyone who knew Kakashi’s history expected things to be worse at night. Dark and silence were not good company for a troubled mind. Iruka had thought the same. He’d lain awake almost the entire first night because he was afraid of what might happen. Kakashi’s even breathing in the dark had seemed entirely out of place.

His arm thrown across Iruka’s stomach and his head tucked under Iruka’s chin had seemed even more so.

Iruka tilted his head down far enough to see the silvery moonlight playing across Kakashi’s equally silver hair. The dreamily surreal light fell in soft bars across the narrow bed. With so little space, they were forced to either wind themselves together or risk falling on the floor. Kakashi’s legs were so hopelessly tangled in his own that he suspected they’d never be able to get them apart. He freed a hand from under Kakashi’s arm and used it to softly brush the strands of Kakashi’s hair away from his face.

Those dangerous eyes were softer when they were closed and even softer in this light. Iruka smoothed his hand down the scar that crossed Kakashi’s cheek. With a sleepy murmur, Kakashi raised a hand to hold Iruka’s closer to his face and turned his head to press a kiss to Iruka’s palm. Iruka whispered a reassurance and smiled when Kakashi’s breathing evened out.

Of all the things he expected out of sharing a bed with Hatake Kakashi, Iruka could honestly admit that this possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind. The warm breath ghosting over his throat and the barely audible snores that accompanied it lulled him into sleep.

When he woke to the sun streaming in on his face, the previous night seemed even more impossible. But there was Kakashi, still wrapped around him and nestled into the crook of his shoulder. Iruka shifted slightly to see if he could catch a glimpse of the same person he’d seen last night and froze when Kakashi started to stir.

“Hmmm, you’re remarkably comfortable, you know.” Kakashi murmured into his collarbone.

Iruka couldn’t immediately think of a response. He floundered for a moment, only to be pinned by a sharp gaze from Kakashi.

“What’s wrong?”

“It wasn’t what I expected,” Iruka said slowly. How were you supposed to tell someone that you expected screams? How were you supposed to capture the image of the tortured, orphaned ANBU and overlay it over the person Kakashi had been last night? How were you supposed to say all of that without implying that his lack of reaction was a failure on his part to care? So Iruka stopped with that and wavered, unsure as to how Kakashi would react.

“It’s never that easy. I always dream,” the inflection effortlessly implied that the dreams were anything but pleasant. “But I didn’t dream last night. I can’t remember the last time....” Kakashi trailed off.

Everyone thought the nights would be the worst. As it turned out, everyone was right. The nights were the worst, but Iruka buffered it. He wasn’t a cure all – the nights were not all as quiet as the first – but he eased the pain and anxiety. He made the fear bearable.

He made the nights bearable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, good night! Thank you to everyone who has been following this escapade - I hope you've enjoyed it!


End file.
